Robinson’s plea: Let’s get experimental
WACKY rules and experimental formats will breathe life back into the NRL if it’s cleared to return in 2020, according to Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson.
The three-time premiership winner, known as one of the greatest thinkers in the game, is part of the NRL’s innovation committee.
Led by Wayne Pearce, the committee is tasked with revamping the NRL schedule in preparation for a restart after the coronavirus shutdown.
“If we’re going to get this competition on, it’s going to be a shortened season. Let’s experiment with stuff that we would never do, that we would never actually try,” Robinson told Fox League Live.
“Let’s offer a great product. Let’s get out there on the world stage and offer the game of rugby league.”
The committee will reconvene on Thursday and discuss a range of experimental ideas including playing in conferences, isolating the players in a bubble and moving the competition to an island.
Isolating teams in a “bubble” would require individuals to self-isolate for 14 days, and then teams to isolate for the same period in locked-down hotels. Robinson is confident the competition can restart this year but, to do so, rugby league needs to work together and forget rivalries in the meantime.
“We have to stop worrying about our little cocoon of: ‘I wonder how the Roosters are going?’,” he said.
“I’ll get back to that when the competition gets decided but we all become rugby league people now.
“Let’s get this game back on as safely as possible and let’s experiment with conferences; let’s work out how the game looks. We’re going to have to go into bubbles anyway to do that.”